I Activated Cheat Mode in a Bizarre Game

From the moment I got home after leaving Cheolsu and Yeonghee’s office, I knew something was wrong.

There was an ambulance parked outside the apartment complex, and the floor of the first-floor hallway was soaked with blood.
On top of that, when I rushed up to my place and unlocked the door lock, I was met not with my front door—but with a solid wall standing there like it had always belonged.
“What the hell is this?”

I gave a hollow laugh and tapped on the wall with my knuckles.
It had to be one of two things. Either Dongto’s Team 2 had started tracking me and pulled something with my place, or the lovely monsters that lived here had caused some kind of serious incident.
Either way, there was only one way to get inside.

I gave the wall a few testing knocks, then casually swung my fist and drove it straight into it.
CRASH—!
The wall was weaker than I expected. It crumbled with a roar.

And beyond the dust and rubble, what I saw left me momentarily stunned.
This wasn’t the living room I knew. It was a bizarre workshop, littered with dolls and fabric in every direction.
It was a little darker than the workshop I remembered, but if I focused, I could see it.

The familiar outlines of the workshop.
And what spread out before my eyes was utter chaos.
Countless dolls lay sprawled on the ground, their limbs torn open and white stuffing spilling out. The debris from the wall I’d just smashed was scattered all over the place.

And—
“The entrance is open…”
“There’s a person! A person…!”
Near the entrance, a few rough-looking men stared up at me—some with expressions on the verge of tears, others pale as corpses.

Don’t tell me these guys are Team 2 from Dongto?
They didn’t look capable of capturing anyone. Hell, they looked like they could barely lift themselves off the floor.
I silently looked down at the supposed Team 2 members buried under the rubble.
Then, one of them—a bespectacled man who looked like the team leader—screamed in terror and pointed a trembling finger at me.

“Mo-Monster…! It’s a monster!”
Monster, huh. That’s a hell of a thing to say about someone.
But the label didn’t feel unfamiliar.

Lately, even Shun had started referring to me as some kind of humanoid aberration or monster. I was used to it by now.
Maybe they realized I’d returned. The twisted scenery of the workshop began to distort.
First, the dark ceiling of the workshop faded, then slowly began to lower.

And then the warm orange lighting I always saw in my living room came on.
The scattered remains of dolls that had filled the entire space blurred like a mirage, and in their place, my bookshelf, sofa, and TV returned to their original forms.
The musty smell of old wood and cotton vanished, replaced by the familiar, comfortable scent of home.

The space itself wavered like a mirage and began returning to its original state.
“Mm. That’s better.”
Finally, it felt like I was home again.

And then Daeho and Leo came sauntering out from the living room.
Their tails swayed as if happy to see their owner again.
At their cute yet majestic sight, I found myself smiling like a proud dad—but the faces of Dongto’s Team 2 turned ghostly white in fear.

“P-Please! Spare us!”
“D-Don’t come closer! Stay back!”
They screamed in panic, scrambling against the wall or crawling along the floor.
Like they’d seen actual demons.

What’s their problem? I tilted my head at their exaggerated reactions.
My boys are adorable.
Judging from the fact that my house had transformed into a workshop earlier, it was safe to say Bianca and the two feline-like monsters in the house had given these men a serious beating.

I thought it was perfect.
This was the best time to extract information from men this terrified.
I walked over to where they sat trembling on the floor and threatened them calmly—that if they behaved, I’d let them live.

“Y-Yes…! We’ll talk! We’ll tell you everything!”
“M-Me first!”
They didn’t hesitate for even a second. As if they’d rehearsed it, they immediately began spilling everything they knew.
That they were part of Dongto Team 2, their ranks, and that they’d been ordered to eliminate me.

Just a moment ago, I’d seen them as pathetic intruders, but now that I knew they were here to kill me, I couldn’t help but feel a rising irritation.
I reached out and gave the team leader—the one who’d called me a monster—a light flick to the forehead.
“Argh!”

But the so-called elite from Dongto collapsed to the floor from that one gentle flick.
Did I misjudge my strength?
“Ugh…”

Thankfully, he didn’t die. From the painful groans he let out, he was still alive.
Team 2 looked completely broken. Not a shred of resistance left. Since I had the chance, I asked them about the recent chain of disappearances involving monster investigation offices, and the suspicious religious group.
They didn’t know all the details, but confirmed that everything was orchestrated by Dongto. And that the Nature Worship Cult was a religion deeply connected to supernatural phenomena.

As a bonus, I also got the location of the building where the Nature Worship Cult was based, and some insight into what Dongto’s Team 1 was currently doing.
“And then?”
“Huh? That’s all we know, really…”
“Hmm…”
“I-Is there anything else you want to ask?”
Their intel wasn’t very satisfying, but I could feel their fear and sincerity loud and clear.

I said, half-joking:
“If you spilled all of Dongto’s secrets like that, won’t you be on the run just like me now?”
“…That’s exactly what our role is.”

Ah. Right. That was their job.
As our conversation ended, Bianca gently tapped my shoulder.
I hadn’t noticed when she got here.

She looked at the men collapsed on the floor, then at me, and asked quietly:
“Human. What do you want to do with them?”
I hesitated.

Letting them go meant they’d just return to Dongto and hurt someone else.
But taking them out myself—even if they were the bad guys—left a sour taste in my mouth.
As if reading my thoughts, Bianca said:

“I’ve made up my mind. Leave it to me, Human.”
Her eyes were firm in a way they hadn’t been before.
“I’ll make sure they never hurt you or any other innocent human again. It’ll be a little… hard, but I’ll do my best.”

With that, she walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
A moment later, a strange light leaked out from the crack, and when the door reopened, the inside had transformed back into the doll workshop.
Then, countless threads shot out like living snakes from the depths of the workshop, coiling around the men’s bodies and dragging them inward.

Whissssh!
“Aaaagh! Wh-What is this?!”
“Please! Spare me!”
The men shrieked in horror, eyes fixed on me as they were pulled away—but I had already decided to leave everything to Bianca.

And so I offered them the greatest comfort I could give.
“Don’t worry too much. Bianca’s a kind monster. She probably won’t kill you. …Probably.”
I sat down on the sofa, trying to organize my tangled thoughts.

Judging by their desperation and the terror on their faces, I doubted they were lying. But still, it was hard to trust the information completely.
These were Dongto people, after all.
Even if they were telling the truth, it might’ve just been what they’d been brainwashed to believe.

At that moment, my phone buzzed.
It was a reply from Choi Yerim to the question I’d sent earlier.
[There’s a post about the Nature Worship Cult you mentioned.]
[It doesn’t name the religion specifically, though.]
[But a lot of the descriptions match.]

Since there were very few places online where you could openly discuss monster phenomena, the gallery dedicated to such topics was full of bizarre stories.
Yerim, who practically lived there managing posts all day, had found the information frighteningly fast.
I read the post she sent.

The author had been walking down the street, desperately needing a bathroom, and happened to stumble into what looked like a church building.
Inside, some strange religious ritual was underway.
At first, it seemed like a group of people were just shouting things like “Let’s love nature!” and “Recycle properly!”—completely mundane and sensible things—but their over-the-top enthusiasm gave the author goosebumps. They ignored it and went to the bathroom.

After using the toilet and washing their hands, they grabbed some toilet paper to dry off without thinking.
And at that very moment—every person inside the building stopped what they were doing and silently stared at them.
Like they had just committed an unforgivable sin.

Freaked out by the icy stares, the author bolted from the building.
At the end of the post, the building’s exact address was written down, along with a desperate plea to any monster investigation office or related company to please check the place out—insisting that something supernatural was definitely going on.
It even mentioned that they'd seen some of those people loitering around their apartment complex recently.

“That’s definitely weird.”
For a group dedicated to protecting nature, it made sense that ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ they glared at someone for wasting paper.
But how the hell did they know the author had used toilet paper in the bathroom?

And how did they all react at once, without a word?
That part felt distinctly supernatural.
“…Same location.”

The things the Dongto Team 2 members had said earlier, and the post from the gallery—they overlapped in some parts.
It seemed like my next target had already been decided.